In the lead up to my funemployment, my boss and I were discussing ideas about my future career moves. One idea that I had been thinking about was running some photography workshops.

It’s only been the last couple of years that I’ve been confidently calling myself a photographer and comfortable saying I know what I’m doing. People may find that strange after two solo gallery exhibitions but I’d rather err on the side of cautiousness rather than blow my own trumpet completely off key.

I see a lot of photography where I think the ideas are there but the execution is missing some technical skill or the technical skill is there but there are too many ideas in the shot. Sometimes there are no ideas in the shot too which can be just as bad.

So, I’m putting it out there. Do you think people would be interested in coming on a photoshoot of a model with me where I take a group of people along, teach them what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Each participant could get some one on one time with the model as well. I think I have some skills to offer and it would be a fun experience.

Today I spent the day with some of my nudie mates. Five of us jumped in the car and went to a National Park to a trail that we know about. Once we were a few hundred metres into the trail we stripped off and hiked nude to a beautiful waterhole that we have been to before.

We spent a couple of hours just chilling out on the rocks at the top of the pretty dry waterfall, eating lunch and chatting. It was a beautifully relaxed way to spend the day.

There are certain hazards in hiking nude in the Australian bush. Lots of the plants are spikey and you do not want to get any of those spikes in your junk. We were pretty unconcerned about being caught nude as we’d found out about it through some other nudie friends of mine. The trail is pretty hard to find which gives you some peace of mind.

Every now and then the internet throws something at you that gives you a flashback.

LONG before I was ready to admit to myself that I was gay, at the age of about 11 or 12 I was at a school mate’s place and we were watching a movie called Paradise with Willie Aames and Phoebe Cates. If you think of a poor man’s version of Blue Lagoon you’re about close. Just like the more iconic Blue Lagoon it featured a love story of a young guy and a girl and it also had some nudity. The gif above is from a scene where they were skinny dipping and my friend and I were, at such a young age pretty transfixed by the nakedness.

How on earth I didn’t know I was gay I will never know. In this scene we kept rewinding the VHS to watch it over and over again but my mate couldn’t understand why I kept going so far back to see Willie swim through first. I’m pretty sure I just pretended that I was slow with my reflexes.

So looking back there were very clear indications at about the time I was starting puberty that men were going to be the focus in my life instead of women.

I’m sure many of you have similar stories of your first inklings of being gay. Feel free to leave those stories in the comments.

It’s been over nine years since I last worked anywhere else and 11 since I have had to regularly commute on public transport. Now I remember why I enjoyed driving to work every day for 9 years.

The last couple of days I have had some temping work at an agency on the other side of the harbour and that means getting two trains. I have no real problem with public transport but at peak hour it’s a bit soul destroying. At least the suburb I’m going to means that for about half the trip my train isn’t crowded.

There are perks however. As well as driving to work for 9 years, I’ve also worked in an area where I didn’t see many people. Now I’m back in the world of business and lots of people and it would appear that I’m reacquainting myself with perving on men looking sharp in business clothes. A nicely fitted pair of business trousers does wonders for a man.

Have you ever thought about buying a limited edition, hand-signed and numbered print?

Now that I have a new website up and running, I’ve added a shop with 12 different images available in three different sizes. When I release an image for sale as an art print, I limit it to five prints. I don’t want too many to be available because for me when someone buys one of my works it has to feel special. It would be a shame for someone to feel like they are buying something too mass produced.

I’m also under no illusion that my work is in such high demand that I’ll sell out of the prints anyway. If you are thinking that you might need some art on your walls, please have a look at the shop. If there is an image of mine that you’ve seen but it’s not available for sale on the site, contact me and I’ll happily discuss arranging prints for you.

Yesterday an argument that was inevitable finally happened. Someone I’ve known for a few years and had some issues with messaged me very innocently yesterday but it descended into a firestorm of crap quite quickly.

Every year or so I get a passive aggressive message where he mentions that I’ve never asked him to model for me. Yesterday he started down that track again but immediately followed up with “better than that bullshit project you did last year” referring to My People My Tribe. That project is one that I’m incredibly proud to have been a part of. The people I met and photographed were awesome and it taught me a lot about photographing non-models.

He tried to call out my integrity with the project because “you’ve never photographed a fat person any other time in your life”. So? Just because I choose to photograph good looking people with great bodies doesn’t mean I am an asshole. And if I’m such an asshole why is he chasing me for his validation?

Verbal grenades were thrown from both sides which I do regret but he is now blocked on all platforms and I’m not going to defend my integrity to someone like that especially after giving so much time and effort to such a great project like MPMT.

I was so motivated for training before I went to Europe then obviously I didn’t do any training while I was away instead walking for miles every day. Since I’ve been back my motivation for the gym has been as low as it’s ever been. Why does this happen?

I’m still going but my workouts are lacklustre and uninspired. It doesn’t help that my gym just doesn’t seem to give a rats arse about it’s members. Equipment takes ages to get fixed and at 6am I’ll walk in to a big pile of yesterdays used towels in the locker room waiting to be dealt with. They also rearranged the gym floor about 6 months ago and I don’t think a weight has been put back in the right spot on the rack since. It’s blatant that no one cares.

Some friends are going to take me to their gym for a trial run over there to check it out. It’s a little more than I’m paying where I am but it’s a great gym and it even has things like handstand classes. It might be just what I need to shake things up and get back on track.

When my most recent dating situation was called off, the guy said that he wanted to catch up as friends. So far that hasn’t happened and I’m not sure it will. I hope it does. He’s a genuinely nice guy. One of my friends in particular has lectured me on not becoming his emotional punching bag. She thinks it’s a terrible idea to catch up.

The whole situation has me thinking. Do people that have been friendzoned ever get back out of that friend zone? I certainly don’t expect to but I wonder if it happens.

Has anyone of you, my dear readers, been friendzoned by someone only to rekindle the romance further down the line? If so, please comment with the story of how you got back there. I’m fascinated.

There are times when life just feels like it’s trying to test you. Losing my job and being told a dating situation was over on the same day wasn’t great. Now as well as trying to find a new job and make the most of all the opportunities I have in front of me, it looks like my living situation is becoming unworkable. It’s nothing my housemate is doing or anything like that.

Since the renovations I now have ALL my stuff in my bedroom including two bookshelves and a desk. It’s just too crowded in there. There is also a bit of a problem with the internet. The modem is now in a cupboard and the signal in my bedroom is absolutely rubbish. So it could be time to start looking for alternatives. If I’m going to be looking for some freelance design work I need internet that is reliable and fast.

The opportunity that comes with looking for a new place to live is the opportunity to find someone to share with that is fine with a clothing optional policy. It’s not crucial but I would love the freedom of not having to get dressed when I walk to the bathroom of a morning. I know these arrangements exist, I just need to find one for myself.

It’s day two of my funemployment. That’s the term that is apparently used when you are still in your notice period after redundancy but you aren’t working. Some call it Gardening Leave. Funemployment sounds more well, fun!

Surprisingly and very pleasantly, today is predicted to be 27˚C here in Sydney and tomorrow is going to be 31˚C so I’ll be taking myself off to the beach to top up my Greece tan from head to toe. It’s not unusual to have some random beach weather at this early stage of Spring but 31˚C is strangely warm. Let’s not get started on the Climate Change debate. To some of us it’s blindingly obvious but nay-sayers are probably hunkering down in Florida at the moment blaming the gays for God’s wrath sending them a hurricane.

So a few hours in the sunshine today and tomorrow should see a good start to my summer tan. Here’s hoping there are some pleasant sights to enjoy at the beach today!

Update: Well the weather isn’t quite as good as expected. My mate Ivan and I went for a couple of hours but it was a bit cool so we abandoned the beach.

Today is my first real day of being unemployed. I’m effectively on “gardening leave” while my notice period is running out for another 8 days or so but there is no point me being in the office with nothing to do.

Today I finally began the task of going through and editing my photos from Iceland. I just hadn’t had time to do it any justice so I hadn’t done it at all. I’ve created an album on Facebook of my favourite 90 image but there are another 180 or so that I’m pretty happy with.

It was great to revisit the photos two months after being there. It’s such a magical place. You know you’re in a beautiful part of the world when you don’t even bother stopping for another waterfall after a while. There are so many beautiful spots there of all different kinds of landscapes.

Last night I saw the movie God’s Own Country. Comparisons with Brokeback Mountain are obvious but too easy and not fair. Johnny is the main character who is a very troubled, angry young man. Soon enough Gheorghe comes into his life and shakes him up a bit.

I’m not going to give any spoilers but I will highly recommend the movie. What I will say is that it doesn’t have the same tragic ending that Brokeback did. It’s a movie with tenderness, sadness, anger and love all handled beautifully by the lead actors and director. Visually it’s bleak but beautiful.

It feels like a very real and raw portrayal of someone dealing with his sexuality in the bleak farming communities of Yorkshire in the UK. It’s no Disney movie that’s for sure but I loved it.

This afternoon the Australian High Court dismissed the challenges to the Postal Plebiscite Survey on Marriage Equality. That means it’s happening and it means the conservatives will be crying that they are being bullied and intimidated by the Yes side. Just because you are being asked to stop being an intolerant bigot doesn’t mean you are being bullied. Nor does a giving someone else the right to marry demean your marriage at all.

It’s important to remember that this vote is not compulsory and also non-binding. It is just an opinion poll. There are several parliamentary members already saying if the vote is for yes that they won’t be voting along with that consensus. They will still be voting no in parliament. So this really is essentially a $122 Million waste of time.

The only way that we can vaguely guarantee a successful outcome in parliament is if the Yes vote from the public is RESOUNDINGLY successful.

I ask anyone reading this who is eligible to vote and thinking of voting no, to email me and have a discussion about why. I promise to be respectful and patient if you do as well. I’m yet to hear a valid argument for voting no but I am happy to have a chat.

The same people who complained that the female Ghost-busters remake saying it ruined their childhood will no doubt be crying about this Money Supermarket advertisement featuring He Man and Skeletor. I’m sure it’s all part of the big bad gay agenda.

I love it when a company takes a huge chance and does something very much out of the box for their advertising. In a similar industry it worked very well for Compare the Market with their very random Meerkat campaign which is still going. Money Supermarket have already rolled out a couple of ads in this campaign and I love what they are doing.

Maybe I just have the right sense of humour for it but to me, adding a camp spin to characters that were supposed to be macho but were actually super camp anyway is just so much fun.

The process of being made redundant and starting my job hunt has been a very daunting one but also a really good one. It’s forced me to do things like sort out my portfolio and rewrite my resume that I’d been putting off. Well there’s no more putting it off.

Another thing that had been sitting in the too-hard basket was my website. Last week I bit the bullet and switched over to a Squarespace site. They have lots of different templates to suit all sorts of businesses with very easy to use functionality. As you can see my signature red from the old site has gone but I’m ok with that. The new site also includes my graphic design work as well as my photography.

Fingers crossed it helps sells my skills to the world. In the coming week or two I will be adding fine art limited edition prints to the site for sale which I’d not been able to do with the old site. Please, go and have a look at the new brentonparry.com I welcome all constructive feedback!